Courses
230 Documentary Film-Making: Insight, Understanding and Production
This course provides instruction in documentary film-making, including video-taped interviews, shooting, lighting, audio recording, and editing. In addition to the technical aspects of film making, the course will incorporate theoretical examinations of message design, and the socio-cultural impact of documentary films and the documentary film industry to help guide students in the production of socially relevant documentary films of their own conception. Students will produce their own mini-documentary videos about subject-matter of their choosing, and be responsible for theoretical and technical writings in support of their films.
Prerequisites: SOCI 240 OR ANTH 240 OR AMST 302.
290 Dealing with Data: Accessing, Analyzing, and Presenting Social Science Data
This course is designed to support student research and presentation in the social sciences. The first week will introduce students to various databases and data visualizations with concrete examples. The following 5 weeks will focus on one of the following areas related to social data, issues, and policies: Demography and Population, Family Household Structure (by Sex, Race and Ethnicity, SES, national origin, language spoken in household, religion); Health, including quality of life indices within and across countries, Millennium Development Goals, AIDS, teen pregnancy, diabetes…; Inequality; Immigration; Crime and punishment. While addressing social problems, issues, and policies, the course is skills-based and focuses on how to access relevant and reliable data, and then assess, analyze, and present those data in order to build strong arguments. There will be weekly readings that use empirical data to argue points of view on a particular social issue and/or policy, debates, visual presentations, and a final short policy brief.Prerequisites: at least 2 courses in one of the social sciences.